Archive for the ‘Television’ Category

Rajdeep Sardesai, Editor-in-Chief, IBN Network, has been unanimously been elected as President of Editors’ Guild of India. Sardesai is the first ever TV editor to be elected to this post and he takes over from Alok Mehta, Editor, Naidunia Delhi.

After the election Rajdeep revealed his agenda as the Guild President, and said, “I have a five-point agenda to develop synergy amongst print, television and the Internet.”

Finally that is official. Star Group and Asianet is joining togther to own its entertainment channels. Till now there were rumours in the media circles. In Kerala Communist Marxist party was writing articles against the deal in its Newspaper Deshabhimani [Great Joke].

Star and Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s Jupiter formed a company for this with the name ‘Star Jupiter Entertainment Television Ltd’ (Star Jupiter).

TRAI is planning to bar political and religious bodies from entering public broad casting. But I do not understand how it is going to help. If a political party or a religious organisation is forming a company with their good friends in it and enter into broadcasting business what TRAI can do?

Are they going to intervene in the functioning of Malayalam Communications Ltd. [which owns Kairali, Malayalam Television Channel]. Are they going to intervene in the functioning of Jaihind Malayalam channel in which Congress Kerala Unit is planning to increase its investment.?

Rumours are around that 9X media’s three channel properties have been sold to two parties. NewsX to Bhaskar Group and other two entertainment channels 9X and 9XM to Balaji Telefilms. Market talk is that the founders of INX media Indrani mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea [ former chief of Star] will be leaving the company. This new development if because of dearth of funds during this economic slowdown.

Balaji Telefilms was interested in starting pan Indian entertainment channels and regional channels for a while now. Is it true? With in days we will be knowing that. INX Group is having two companies, INX Media and INX News.

New Delhi, May 3: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Priyaranjan Dasmunsi today criticised themedia for indulging in ”human trafficking” by repeatedly showing the Shilp Shetty-Richard Gere episodeand said that a Comprehensive Broadcasting Regulatory Bill would be brought in the next session ofParliament.

Talking to reporters on the sidelines of a workshop on ‘Gender Equality in Indian Media’ organised by theMinistry of Women and Child Development to mark the World Press Freedom Day, Mr Dasmunsi said theComprehensive Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill has already been prepared by his ministry and isnow being sent for inter-ministerial debate by the end of this session. So, the bill may come before theParliament in the next session, he informed.

NEW DELHI, April 10: The NDTV Group announced its foray into the general entertainment space at a press meet in the Capital on Monday. A new company, called NDTV Imagine, will roll out its first general entertainment channel by the end of the year. Headed by Sameer Nair, former CEO of STAR India, NDTV Imagine is part of NDTV Networks Plc.

This general entertainment channel (GEC), which is still to be named, will be followed by two more channels in the entertainment space. The second channel will be a movie channel. The third one will also be a GEC, but will cater to a more specific audience within the GEC space, and will be the second GEC in the NDTV Imagine bouquet, just as STAR India has STAR One as a second GEC, and Sony Entertainment Network has SAB TV.

NEW DELHI, APR 9: NDTV Networks Plc, the UK-registered new ventures arm of news broadcaster NDTV, is likely to make an initial public offering (IPO) on an overseas bourse—possibly in the US or the UK—by 2010. NDTV Networks spearheads new initiatives in areas like general entertainment and lifestyle.

The Prannoy Roy-led broadcaster, preparing to launch three general entertainment channels (the first slated for September), has wrapped up funding for NDTV Networks, which has five subsidiaries: NDTV Imagine Ltd, NDTV Lifestyle Ltd, NDTV Convergence Ltd, NDTV Labs Ltd and 50% in NGEN Media Services Pvt Ltd.

Indian Language News Television market is generally thin. The main reason is that, it is hard to make good revenue out of this. Some states are having one news channel. Other than Hindi only Malayalam is having more than one News Channel. [Malayalam has got Four news channels]If an upcountry big group is into this business even the possibility of revenue is much higher. So it is worth watching the news move by Raghav Bahl’s GBN’s [Global Broadcast News] initiative to enter Regional News Market. They are planning to start Marathi News channel.